Has anyone else warmed up a bit to Kai?

[DemonRin]

I'm sorry for the people who still love the original Z, but Kai was a godsend for me.

The pacing was just atrociously bad originally. So much so that the entire time on Namek is nigh-unwatchable.

In Z, Son Vs. Freeza was 19 episodes from start to finish, nine of which of those episodes were the "Five Minutes" the planet was going to blow up in.

I'm sorry, but no. Kai is so much better in that regard.
Add to that he new English dub, and it's just the perfect release of this material for me.

[dbboxkaifan]

Nicely pointed out, DemonRin!

Lord Freeza clearly does not know how much five minutes are in reality, but all in all, Freeza's arc is my favourite from Dragon Ball Z, and on Kai, but English Kai, Cell's my number one.

Dameon Clarke as Cell is just perfect, and unintentionally the dialogue makes the viewers visualize situations it shouldn't, or Gohan's white thing (milk/spit/cum) around his mouth (Nicktoons edit).

Cell being naughty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqDCTFx8WPw

[DBZ Mick]

I'm sorry for the people who still love the original Z, but Kai was a godsend for me.

The pacing was just atrociously bad originally. So much so that the entire time on Namek is nigh-unwatchable.

In Z, Son Vs. Freeza was 19 episodes from start to finish, nine of which of those episodes were the "Five Minutes" the planet was going to blow up in.

I'm sorry, but no. Kai is so much better in that regard.
Add to that he new English dub, and it's just the perfect release of this material for me.

I actually prefer the Namek saga and Freeza saga to the 1 year of training for Nappa and Vegeta's arrival in Z...


The pacing was fine for me although I do think the 5 minutes did drag in spots (I do cut certain filler out though AND Ep 102- apart from when Freeza blows up one of the moons). I thought it all came together in the end.

[coola]

For me, Kai become pretty enjoyable after awesome English dub, and while i still think its missed opportunity, at least it give us excellent Englsh dub, with, for me, beats Japanese Kai.

[dan2026]

I pretty much agree with the original poster.

I wont agree that Kai is a perfect product. But the fact that it doesn't have the god-awful pacing of the original show makes it infinetly more watchable to me.
I'd actually consider recommending it to someone. 'Z'? god no.

However the biggest thing for me that nobody else has mentioned is the new Japanese audio, sounds so much nicer than the 80s mono.

[dbboxkaifan]

However the biggest thing for me that nobody else has mentioned is the new Japanese audio, sounds so much nicer than the 80s mono.

Can't quite agree with you, the Japanese VA's sound better on its original DBZ anime than on DBK, and the music was also better.

Nozawa's Goku SSJ scream for me, I liked it more on DBZ than DBK.

Son Goku goes SSJ moment:
DBZ - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjPzIlP1_NQ (01:21)
DBK - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50Sp1n0L1AA (05:00)

It's nice that DBK has clean audio which DBZ Dragon Boxes didn't (due to Toei throwing the broadcast audio away) but it doesn't really bother me at all.

Those who needed more Dragon Ball Kai, was America (DBK is Dragon Ball Z Kai) because they used to have a terrible English dub but now the table's turned.

[DBZ Mick]

I also agree but it's obvious why. The seiyuus have all gotten older since they last did the show.

But the fact that it doesn't have the god-awful pacing of the original show makes it infinetly more watchable to me.
I'd actually consider recommending it to someone. 'Z'? god no.

I think it gets better on rewatch. I watched the Saiyan-Freeza arcs for the first time last year and liked it but did agree it did have some horrendous pacing at times (not to mention cutting certain filler). But I watched again and didn't mind it quite so much. And the Artificial Human/Cell to Boo sagas are much better paced.

[thedarkuniter]

I also agree with you guys about the Japanese side of things for Kai. I pretty much prefer their older performance much more, probably because they're younger then but now, they sound much more tired. Also, it doesn't do much for Japanese fans, rewording aside, from what I can tell from the subs, they're pretty much requoting the same lines from the the original Z. However, it's a much bigger difference from the English side of things between Z's original dub and the Kai dub, almost everybody else had their perfect dub but the U.S., so it's very beneficial for English fans.

[MCDaveG]

Well, I'm not. I still love the Z that I have watched years ago in the TV. Maybe I'm weird, but I really fell in love with this series due to it's pacing. I liked how the fights were stretched to many episodes, always ending with cliffhanger.
I loved how the are thinking about the strategy and having these discussions between themselves and then fight.
With Kikuchi's music, the series have this unique atmosphere for me. I really loved how Goku was smashed into the rock and remained there for 1/4 of the episode struggling with his damn situation, it had this drama feeling for me when I was cheering for him, to get up and kick this opponents ass.

It didn't work in Kai for me. As it's fastened up to resemble these modern series claiming to be closer to manga, it felt really weird. To much haste with scenes that were done into different concept. Some parts were weird even from the start in the battle with Raditz. I really liked the Yamamoto's score, until I heard for example, rearanged theme from Avatar, which really killed it for me. I don't like Avatar movie but more so, I like original scores and don't get, why I must listen to some theme from different movie in a series with original music? I like when they use a classic piece of baroque or classicist music for example, but not when they are copiing modern music done for something else.
The last things that decided it for me were re-drawn scenes. I really love oldschool anime and hand drawn cells. The feel and look they have. So you have animation restored from hand drawn cells and now in the next shot you see this Naruto/One piece modern anime graphics with thin lines and full PC pallete generated colours? That was really weird and blast for my eyes. The episodes done by the cheap animating studio didn't helped those scenes at all.
Japanese dub was great, but the actors are old. Masako is doing top notch as she ever was, but well, Vegeta got a lot more raspier and he sounds like he's close to his fifties then that arrogant strong warrior with menacing voice I remember from Z. He's awesome as ever, but his voice degraded with age. Same goes for Cell for me.

Around the Androids/Cell arc, I simply stopped watching it and the cancelation before the Buu saga, in which I most interested the most, cemented my feelings towards Kai.
So it didn't warmed up, this re-edition of the Z anime was simply killing itself on it's own iin my eyes and I passed this as some spot in Dragon Ball franchise history. It's there but I don't care and also think, that it's more of a series for audience that didn't grew up on the classic one.

[dbboxkaifan]

Japanese dub was great, but the actors are old.

It's Japanese audio not a "dub".

The Japanese VA were much better back then with DBZ than with DBK, Masako's Son Goku SSJ scream was better on Z than Kai for me.

[MCDaveG]

But actually it is a dub, they had to dub the drawn characters into the silent animation. Not like in live action series when in most of them, the sound actually goes from the actual scene recording.
That's why I'm using word dub.
+ in Japan, they are doing animation first and then the actors are dubbing it. I read that in USA, Batman TAS, they recorded the actors and then did the animation to sync it with their dialogues.
Don't know if every original US series is done like that.

[SylentEcho]

I loved Kai when it first started, but after I heard Horikawa's new take on Vegeta, it started to change for me. The main thing is, I'm just too used to the DBZ pacing. Kai is perfect for new audiences, but DBZ ain't broken. I've passed on Z to quite a few people this past year and they all loved it. They complained it got slow in just the Freeza arc.

As far as Kai is concerned, the Freeza arc is way way way better than the Z Freeza arc. They've managed to create the break-neck pace, action and suspense that Z failed to do for it.